The limits of protest event data and repertoires for the analysis of contemporary feminism

Protest event data (PEA) and the related concept of repertoire of contention is widely used in the study of social movements. I argue that conventional forms of protest event analysis may have significant limitations when applied to feminist protest. Unobtrusive or individualised forms of resistance and protest associated with feminism are difficult to measure through typical protest event data. Moreover, the concept of repertoires of contention retains within it a number of unwarranted gendered assumptions. Some flow from being too reliant upon protest event data. I suggest that repertoires may be gendered, that this is unacknowledged by those who use the concept and has implications for its normative dimensions

Industrial citizenship: a re-conceptualisation and case study of the UK

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and reformulate T.H. Marshall's concept of industrial citizenship, and apply the reformulated model to a case study of the UK. Design/methodology/approach: Marshall's conceptualisation of industrial citizenship is criticised for neglecting the rights of unions as collective rights and for treating industrial citizenship as an aggregation of individual rights. Subsequent attempts to use the idea of industrial citizenship are similarly flawed. A case study of changes to industrial citizenship in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s is used to develop the new model and provide evidence in support of it. Findings: An alternative conceptualisation of industrial citizenship is presented that outlines collective and individual powers, obligations, liberties, constraints, immunities and liabilities. This model is illustrated using examples from the Conservative governments' industrial relations legislation of the 1980s and 1990s. Originality/value: Discussions and applications of T.H. Marshall's concept of industrial citizenship are few and far between. The paper proposes an original re-conceptualisation specifying the collective rights of unions in the British regime of industrial citizenship. This new concept of industrial citizenship is then applied to the radical changes in industrial relations legislation in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s

The social geography of childcare: 'making up' the middle class child

Childcare is a condensate of disparate social forces and social processes. It is gendered and classed. It is subject to an excess of policy and political discourse. It is increasingly a focus for commercial exploitation. This is a paper reporting on work in progress in an ESRC funded research project (R000239232) on the choice and provision of pre-school childcare by middle class (service class) families in two contrasting London locations. Drawing on recent work in class analysis the paper examines the relationships between childcare choice, middle class fractions and locality. It suggests that on the evidence of the findings to date, there is some evidence of systematic differences between fractions in terms of values, perspectives and preferences for childcare, but a more powerful case for intra-class similarities, particularly when it comes to putting preferences into practice in the 'making up of a middle class child' through care and education

Are Labour Markets Necessarily Local? Spatiality, Segmentation and Scale

This paper draws on recent debates about scale to approach the geography of labour markets from a dynamic perspective sensitive to the spatiality and scale of labour market restructuring. Its exploration of labour market reconfigurations after the collapse of a major firm (Ansett Airlines) raises questions about geography’s faith in the inherently ‘local’ constitution of labour markets. Through an examination of the job reallocation process after redundancy, the paper suggests that multiple labour markets use and articulate scale in different ways. It argues that labour market rescaling processes are enacted at the critical moment of recruitment, where social networks, personal aspirations and employer preferences combine to shape workers’ destinations

The difference that tenure makes

This paper argues that housing tenures cannot be reduced to either production relations or consumption relations. Instead, they need to be understood as modes of housing distribution, and as having complex and dynamic relations with social classes. Building on a critique of both the productionist and the consumptionist literature, as well as of formalist accounts of the relations between tenure and class, the paper attempts to lay the foundations for a new theory of housing tenure. In order to do this, a new theory of class is articulated, which is then used to throw new light on the nature of class-tenure relations

Automatic transmission: ethnicity, racialization and the car

YesThis article is based on ethnographic research carried out in Bradford, an ethnically diverse city situated in the north of England. The sample of over 60 participants mostly comprises males of British Pakistani Muslim heritage but varies in terms other markers of identity such as social class, profession and residential/working locale. The article analyses the cultural value and meaning of cars within a multicultural context and how a consumer object can feed into the processes which refine and embed racialized identities. Small cases studies reveal the concrete and discursive ways through which ideas around identity and ethnicity are transmitted and how, in particular, racialization continues to feature as a live, active and recognisable process in everyday experience

Manageable creativity

This article notes a perception in mainstream management theory and practice that creativity has shifted from being disruptive or destructive to 'manageable'. This concept of manageable creativity in business is reflected in a similar rhetoric in cultural policy, especially towards the creative industries. The article argues that the idea of 'manageable creativity' can be traced back to a 'heroic' and a 'structural' model of creativity. It is argued that the 'heroic' model of creativity is being subsumed within a 'structural' model which emphasises the systems and infrastructure around individual creativity rather than focusing on raw talent and pure content. Yet this structured approach carries problems of its own, in particular a tendency to overlook the unpredictability of creative processes, people and products. Ironically, it may be that some confusion in our policies towards creativity is inevitable, reflecting the paradoxes and transitions which characterise the creative process

Young British Pakistani Muslim women’s involvement in higher education

YesThis article explores the implications for identity through presenting a detailed analysis of how three British Pakistani women narrated their involvement in higher education. The increased participation of British South Asian women in higher education has been hailed a major success story and is said to have enabled them to forge alternative, more empowering gender identities in comparison to previous generations. Drawing on generative narrative interviews conducted with three young women, we explore the under-researched area of Pakistani Muslim women in higher education. The central plotlines for their stories are respectively higher education as an escape from conforming to the ‘good Muslim woman’; becoming an educated mother; and Muslim women can ‘have it all’. Although the women narrated freedom to choose, their stories were complex. Through analysis of personal ‘I’ and social ‘We’ self-narration, we discuss the different ways in which they drew on agency and fashioned it within social and structural constraints of gender, class and religion. Thus higher education is a context that both enables and constrains negotiations of identity

What are the cost-savings and health benefits of improving detection and management for six high cardiovascular risk conditions in England? An economic evaluation

Objectives To estimate the cost savings and health benefits of improving detection of individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in England, to determine to which patient subgroups these benefits arise, and to compare different strategies for subsequent management. Design An economic analysis using the School for Public Health Research CVD Prevention Model. Setting England 2018. Participants Adults aged 16 and older with one or more high cardiovascular risk conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, non-diabetic hyperglycaemia, atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney disease and high cholesterol. Interventions Detection of 100% of individuals with CVD high risk conditions compared with current levels of detection in England. Detected individuals are assumed to be managed either according to current levels of care or National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. Main outcome measures Incremental and cumulative costs, savings, quality adjusted life years (QALYs), CVD cases, and net monetary benefit, from a UK NHS and Personal Social Services perspective. Results £68 billion could be saved, 4.9 million QALYs gained and 3.4 million cases of CVD prevented over 25 years if all individuals in England with the six CVD high risk conditions were diagnosed and subsequently managed at current levels. Additionally, if all detected individuals were managed according to NICE guidelines, total savings would be £61 billion, 8.1 million QALYs would be gained and 5.2 million CVD cases prevented. Most benefits come from detection of high cholesterol in the short term and diabetes in the long term. Conclusions Substantial cost savings and health benefits would accrue if all individuals with conditions that increase CVD risk could be diagnosed, with detection of undiagnosed diabetes producing greatest benefits. Ensuring all conditions are managed according to NICE guidelines would further increase health benefits. Projected cost-savings could be invested in developing acceptable and cost-effective solutions for improving detection and management

Cohesion as ‘common sense’: Everyday narratives of community and cohesion in New Labour’s Britain

The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Politics, Vol. 36(3) July 2016, DOI: 10.1177/0263395715620811 published by SAGE Publishing. All rights reservedThis article engages with popular narratives of community and cohesion, explored through a series of focus groups in Bradford and Birmingham. This article argues that the participants interviewed used discourses propagated by government to make sense of these narratives in their neighbourhoods and communities. The use of these discourses constructs what Gramsci calls a ‘common sense’ position, which legitimises a specific and targeted notion of cohesion. However, participants can contaminate these discourses, which can lead to subtle changes or explicit challenges to dominant discourses on community and cohesion in the United Kingdom.Peer reviewe